Kris handed the phone over to Ash, basically telling her ‘it’s that old grumpy guy’.

When I heard this, I had to ask what was up.

Kristen told me “Remember that old man that used to come in and talk to us non-stop about everything?”

“Nope, not really,” I replied.

“Well,” she said. “He now only gets delivery, and he yells and complains and cusses at us on the phone. I can’t even understand him anymore, and so I just give the phone to someone else. Sometimes even one of the guys working in the kitchen will take his order. He doesn’t like women.”

Sure enough, I walk over to where Ash is on the phone and she has repeated “I’m sorry — what did you say?” twice in ten seconds.

She spends ten minutes (AN ETERNITY when it comes to taking an order for delivery) repeating the order, then explaining how much everything costs when he complains about the price.

When she hangs up the phone, rolling her eyes and sighing loudly, I ask for more details.

“Well,” she says, “the last time he called and placed a delivery order, his phone was so static-y and he was yelling, and I couldn’t understand a thing he said. So he yelled louder which just made it worse. Then, when the delivery driver got there, the guy gave our driver a quarter and said ‘Give this to the girl who answered the phone to buy some G*Damned hearing aids!'”

Kris then chimed in.

“And when he called just now, I answered the phone like normal and he said ‘Why the hell you gotta talk so fast? Who are you tryin’ to impress?’ and so I apologized and repeated exactly the same thing, but in slow motion: “I am sorrrrrry. Thannnk yooooou for calllllling Pie Zonnnnnn Ohzzzzzzzz…. how can I hellllllp yooooou?” and he said “You could talk slower for once”.

When our driver overheard that we were talking about this particular customer, he floored me with:

“Yeah, and when I got there, he said ‘What the $%#! is wrong with that #^**# girl that answers the phone? Is she a #$?* idiot? You guys need to #$%****n fire her.” I just told him I didn’t know how to answer him and thanked him for his business.